


Say Anything

by wrabbit



Series: Trans-Atlantic [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Dom/sub, Face Slapping, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrabbit/pseuds/wrabbit
Summary: Three years after V-Day, history is slightly revised and redacted.//"There is no grey. Just good, patriotic people, and evil, other kinds of people. Dead, complicated people have a way of becoming one or the other.""But Harry's a hero.""Be grateful they've decided that."
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Merlin (mentioned), Merlin/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Merlin/OMC (mentioned)
Series: Trans-Atlantic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2031097
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

"Um," Eggsy said.

"Yes?" Merlin glanced up at him over his reading glasses. 

Shit. "You look nice," Eggsy tried, wagging his eyebrows. "I like your glasses. Where'd you get those?"

Merlin looked to the ceiling. His shoulders fell on a breath. "Can I help you with something?" 

Eggsy stared, just watching as Merlin closed his laptop, folded his glasses on the table, and stood up. He walked around to stand in front of Eggsy on the couch. 

"Hey, babe." Eggsy grinned up at him. He reached out to feel the hem of Merlin's sweater. 

"I'm not sure if I'm dreading or looking forward to the day when you stop looking at me like that and start telling me what you want." 

"Do you want to sit down with me?" Eggsy patted his lap. 

Merlin laughed and urged him to stand. "Is this how you talk to girls?"

"I mean, yeah." Of course. Usually women didn't respond by twisting his arm behind his back. "How do you talk to girls, uh, just guys? Whatever."

"Get down." 

"Oh! Does that usually work?" 

Merlin pulled Eggsy down by his trapped arm so he knelt and then nudged him forward to his hands and knees. He rolled over, laughing as Merlin slung a leg over his hips and pinned him to the carpet. 

"You know you could take me, if you made any effort," he pointed out, twisting a fist Eggsy's t-shirt and stretching it out. 

Eggsy huffed, holding onto Merlin's forearm with one hand. He really did doubt that. 

"You'd cheat."

"Never taught you to fight fair, I only taught you to win."

"You can be such a - " 

Merlin's fingers flexed against Eggsy's bared stomach. 

"Shit!" Eggsy cackled. "Not fair," he wheezed, laughing.

Merlin hands slid up to rest on his chest. "Should I stop?"

Eggsy breathed out hard through his nose, glaring up at him. 

"Relax." Merlin was smiling. 

"I am relaxed," Eggsy panted. "Nope!" His hands shot to Merlin's wrists when he sensed movement. "Don't!"

Merlin raised his eyebrows and looked down at him as if to say: See? 

He let Eggsy take his hand and lace their fingers together, resting. 

"Hit me," Eggsy said. He was already breathless. 

Merlin's brow twitched curiously. The fingers of his free hand swept across Eggsy's cheek, fast and light. It caught him off-guard even though he'd asked. 

"Harder."

Gently again, but an audible smack. Eggsy made a sound from his gut, a bright hiccup of light flashing and pooling in his belly. He heard Merlin huff, laughing at him again. 

Eggsy's hand was caught reaching for his belt. "We can't." 

"What?"

"It's almost nine, you demon, I have to go!"

Eggsy threw his arm over his face. His cheek was warm and tingling. "It's Saturday," he complained. Merlin slapped his thigh hard as he got up. "Ow." 

"They don't fly me here to fuck you, I'm afraid."

"Why not?" Eggsy muttered. "Call it a legacy Kingsman benefit."

A foot nudged Eggsy's hip. 

"Five minutes?" he bargained, rolling over and pulling himself up onto the couch. 

Merlin was lacing his shoes up at the table. "It may take five minutes to do you, but I can't be late." Rude. "Maybe I want you to wait."

"For what?"

"For later." 

Eggsy stretched his spine up when Merlin walked around the couch and leaned down to kiss goodbye, reaching for more. "I don't like surprises, you know," he said when Merlin stood up, too soon.

"I promise you I don't have one." Merlin checked his pockets and adjusted his belt before he picked up his bag and coat to leave. 

"Don't send me any filthy messages, either," he said on the way out. "I'll be done in a few hours." 

Yeah, Merlin hadn't liked it when Eggsy slipped him a dick pic during a work day. 

Later was about ten minutes in total, Eggsy's hands down Merlin's slacks before he had to grab his suitcase and jump in a cab.

It could be, Eggsy realized pretty quickly, kind of shit seeing someone who only flew into town every four to six weeks. At least they wouldn't get sick of each other, he thought. 

He texted Merlin endless photos of JB. They talked about work. About nothing in particular. On the weekends they streamed reality dating and talent shows which were loads more entertaining with Merlin's bitching and commentary throughout. Eggsy laughed his ass off while Merlin belted the entirety of Don't Stop Believin' on the phone. Then Eggsy celebrated his sister's sixth birthday and took her with their mum to Paris for the weekend. 

In November, Eggsy was asked if he would return to Berlin with the radio team until the project wrapped. He'd have to be out for over a month, back for the holidays, then probably leave again in January. He wouldn't see Merlin during any of the weeks he visited London.

Eggsy called him, frustrated and upset, and slept horribly that night, feeling suddenly not just the miles between New York and London, but also the loss of Kingsmen, and Harry, and that entire glittering, golden life. All broken down and the pieces scattered in one horrendous week. Leaving him to what? 

More depressed than he had been in a long time, Eggsy stumbled into work with a headache that coffee couldn't fix, only to receive an email about an hour after he sat down at his desk. His supervisor David, asking him to re-assign to a new project in London and pulling a different teammate for Berlin. 

Eggsy was relieved, then embarrassed that he'd stayed up late feeling sorry for himself for no reason. He waited until lunchtime, early morning in New York, to call Merlin.

"Ah," Merlin said, when he told him what happened. 

"What do you mean 'Ah'?"

"Well," Merlin said, hesitating. "I'm not sure, but I might have asked about your availability." 

Eggsy's intestines twisted and he leaned forward over the table. "You what?" he hissed. "Fuck, Merlin. Hey, Dave, look, sorry. I need Eggsy here for sex."

"I definitely didn't say that."

"Platonic guy friends don't - they don't ask each other's bosses if they can hang out!"

"We are also two of very few original Kingsmen, and Dave is aware that I mentored you and brought you on board personally," Merlin said, reasonably. "Maybe it has nothing to do with me."

Eggsy huffed. "Yeah, right," he started, and closed his eyes. "It's not like I care if he knows. I'm just - It's just - "

"I'm sorry I interfered. I didn't think."

"I don't know. I just kind of freaked out last night after they told me I was going to Berlin." He breathed. "I still think you're out of your mind."

"Call it a legacy Kingsman benefit." 

"I'll know if he knows," Eggsy warned him. "I'll see it in his fucking - bloodshot eyes that he's been thinking impure thoughts about you and me. In less than an hour. I swear to god, Merlin." 

Merlin laughed quietly. "I promise he's not."

"I mean it. And you're not the expendable one, here. Isn't there some kind of rule about this?" It seemed like there was a rule for everything. Eggsy's email was overflowing with training alerts and informational opportunities. 

"There's not, actually. I suppose someone could take an issue, if they really wanted to. But I promise you it wouldn't matter. Neither of you report to me." 

Eggsy hummed. He didn't think so. 

But Dave was perfectly normal when Eggsy saw him later that afternoon, that is: awkward and dreary. What he did say was that the holidays were coming up and he needed Eggsy’s time-off form. They needed more experienced techs in London so their new hire was assigning to Germany and would need to be trained. 

Also Eggsy had been requested at the V-Day three year anniversary planning meeting the following month. David didn't mention Merlin. 

“Did you know about this?” Eggsy asked Merlin when he finished explaining later, somehow more upset and stressed out about the V-Day meeting than he had been when he thought that Merlin had just run a sex appointment by his boss. 

Merlin waited. “Not exactly, but I’m not surprised,” he said, tinny and muffled on the phone. Eggsy stretched to hear him.

“Are you on speaker phone?”

“I’m in the car.” 

“Fuck it anyway.” Eggsy dropped his keys and fell into a chair, pulling JB into his lap when he jumped up to lick Eggsy's face. 

“They probably assumed you’d want to be included.”

“Well I don’t.” 

“Okay, tell them you’re not interested. Surely it’s not required."

“I don't know. Fuck. Hang on a minute.” 

Eggsy put Merlin on speaker phone as well while he shed his jacket and hat, reaching into the fridge for a beer. He listened at the table while Merlin told him about work. It was early afternoon in New York and he was driving back to the office after a meeting. “They might want you to speak,” he said, about V-Day. 

"Why? They don't care what I have to say. It's none of their fucking business."

"You were there. Maybe you should talk about it.”

"Maybe."

Eggsy could tell that Merlin was thinking and about to say more but he ended the call before he could hear it. 

He finished his beer in a few swallows, heart pounding, and redialed. "I'm sorry," he said, just as Merlin picked up. "What were you going to say? Are you... okay?" 

Merlin sighed. "I'm fine, but I can't talk about this just now."

Maybe we should, Eggsy thought. He pressed his forehead to the table. 

They didn’t talk about it. Eggsy skimmed and deleted the V-Day planning committee emails as he got them. They wanted him in the ceremony to receive Agent Galahad's award, and it didn't seem like he had been given much of a choice. 

He wasn't sure what he wanted. He couldn't say no, that he didn't care about Harry, but surely they’d forget about Eggsy and quietly replace him with someone more name brand. Surely Harry had been friendly with a few shadow ministers at school, someone who was thirsty for the spotlight. Someone who had probably already written a speech for the occasion, coloured with tony anecdotes regarding Harry’s feelings on practical jokes, Aristotle, his young sporting career.

Eggsy didn’t know shit all about Harry Hart. Harry Hart was some kind of well-educated mountain lion that liked butterflies and nice furniture. Harry was a bit cheeky and vain, deservedly so. He preferred ham to sausage and biscuits to toast. 

Eggsy didn’t even know his middle name. Didn’t know if he had family, was gay, straight, ever married. Didn’t know what kind of music he liked. Couldn't remember what school he attended. Didn’t know much except that there was no way Harry would have wanted him up there, talking about him like he had the right. 

Merlin didn’t bring it up again, which was just as well because Eggsy didn’t think he would understand. He couldn’t. 

\--- 

Merlin flew in the afternoon before the meeting and arrived a bit sickly and jet-lagged. He surprised Eggsy by inviting him to the hotel that night. He’d been by it before, surely, but he couldn’t remember when. The modern lobby smelled uncannily familiar, like scented lotion and new carpet. The high ceilings glistened with shards of coloured glass suspended on invisible wires. 

Eggsy strode confidently past the desk and to the elevator where he entered a code that Merlin texted him to open the doors. 

“They always put you up here?” Eggsy said, following Merlin into his room, looking around. It seemed pretty standard, the opulent lobby notwithstanding. Two queen beds and a desk where Merlin had set up his laptop. Only the kitchenette sink was oddly incredible, concrete inset with tiny blue tiles. 

“Almost always,” Merlin said. He sat down on the nearest bed, slumping and rubbing the back of his neck. He didn’t look well. 

“Are you sick?”

“I think so. We shouldn’t - “ Eggsy kissed him. 

“You taste…” Eggsy licked his own lips. “Sweet.”

Merlin huffed through his nose. “That would be sweet and sour sauce,” he said, and Eggsy saw the take-out containers in the trash by the desk. 

Eggsy fell back onto Merlin’s bed and reached for the comically oversized remote. He pressed every button until Merlin took it from him and turned the screen on in one, handing it back so Eggsy could surf. 

Channel 566 commercial, 568 commercial, 572 home decorating show, 573 golf, 575 golf, 579 commercial, 600 Gilligan’s Island. 

Merlin showered and changed. He leaned back against the headboard to text and scroll through the apps on his phone while Eggsy watched an ancient history show. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Guess so,” Eggsy replied. His stomach clenched. He probably should have read the emails more closely, to see if they mentioned what Merlin was supposed to be doing at the ceremonies. He didn’t think so. Merlin would have mentioned, maybe. He didn’t want to talk about it, though. Not yet. “Can I stay over?”

Still staring vacantly at his phone, Merlin said, “I don’t want to get you sick.”

“Too late for that.” 

He released a breath and let his arm drop as Eggsy moved to kneel over him.

"What do you want?" Eggsy asked, flipping his hair out of the way when it fell and leaning forward to brush his lips against Merlin’s. It felt illicit, and a bit thrilling, to be kissing in a hotel room. Merlin's territory and a vacation all in one. 

"This is nice," Eggsy commented, settling down and rubbing his face against Merlin's shirt until he found a nipple. He pressed it with his fingers. 

"I'm tired." Eggsy could feel his voice in his chest. 

"I can tell." 

But Merlin sat up to help Eggsy remove his shirt. He lied back down on his back and covered his face with his arm, sighed under Eggsy's hands.

"Is this okay?" 

Merlin hummed, one hand coming to rest on the back of Eggsy's head as he explored his torso, kissing and pressing his face to Merlin's belly, his scars. Eggsy hadn't ever had the time to look at them up close.

He licked a dark, puckered line a few inches horizontal on Merlin's lower stomach. A white and pink burn splashed across his sternum and chest. The skin there felt tight and thin. 

Eggsy sucked around a small nipple, worrying it with his tongue when Merlin groaned and rubbed the back of head. Eggsy palmed the start of an erection in his sweatpants. 

Merlin hadn't ever just lied down for him before, and he felt tender, and amused. Merlin's arm was still over his face so Eggsy kissed and licked his elbow, smiling when Merlin lifted it to peer at him. 

They maneuvered, Merlin pushing himself up and Eggsy sliding down press his nose and face to Merlin's lap.

"Wait," Merlin murmured, hand sliding around Eggsy's head. 

He hummed a question. 

"Ask me." 

"Can I?"

"Can you what?" 

Eggsy licked his lips. He looked up. If Merlin said 'I don't know, can you?' he was going to flip a lid. "Is this a trick?"

Merlin's face softened. He touched Eggsy's neck. "Of course not."

"Can I suck you? Please?" 

"Carry on."

Merlin's dick was still slacking when Eggsy pulled down his sweatpants and took it into his mouth. He mouthed and sucked at him carefully, trying to lean up and touch Merlin with his other hand at the same time. Merlin tasted like soap and sweat and Eggsy wished he could press his whole body closer but had to push himself up to his knees to take him in and move more freely. 

Merlin was breathing harder, and squeezing Eggsy's wrist on the bed when Eggsy had to stop and sit back for a minute. "Sorry." 

Merlin took his wrist and guided Eggsy's hand, more firmly and slowly than Eggsy might have touched him. 

Sliding down, Eggsy kissed his leg, Merlin's wrist and hand covering his own on Merlin's cock. Merlin groaned approving sounds while Eggsy sucked on the skin of his ballsack, licking into the crease. 

Merlin's head back against the headboard, his belly expanding and falling with tight, short breaths. He looked powerful, and vulnerable, and Eggsy wanted to taste him again. 

"Merlin." Eggsy breathed against his thigh. He was still nervous about asking. "Can I suck you again?" 

"Beautiful," Merlin whispered warmly and guided Eggsy up to take him back into his mouth. 

Eggsy made a soft sound around his cock, tasting salt and sex, and tried to relax and let himself be led. He didn't feel like he was doing a very good job at keeping up, but Merlin's thigh flexed under his hand and he could just hear him speaking softly, "So beautiful, good, good."

Eggsy's eyes watered but he didn't pull away when Merlin's hand gripped his shoulder, arm tight against his neck, and he started to come, magnificiently warm and close and pulsing in Eggsy's mouth. 

Eggsy had a coughing fit on Merlin's leg when he could pull back. He caught his breath. "Fuck. Are you laughing at me?"

Eggsy peered up and saw that Merlin was, a little bit. 

"Hey, I'm learning here," he complained. He kissed and bit Merlin's stomach, covering him again when Merlin pulled him up to be a blanket, one arm trapped between their bodies. 

Eggsy pulled back from a wet kiss to the side of his head and hid his face in Merlin's shoulder. He was half hard but Merlin was soft and warm and drawing patterns up and down his back, nails catching on the weave of Eggsy's t-shirt and making him shiver, and he couldn't have moved for anything.

It was so quiet. An unsettling, heavy silence was laid over the whole building. In Eggsy's apartment there was always the traffic, or the sirens, or the neighbors, or a pipe running. JB farting and tip-tapping on the floor. 

He could hear Merlin's heartbeat and the small movements inside. An intermittent hum that might have just been in Eggsy's head. His lungs inflating up and down. 

Eggsy’s bones ached, his temples, his chest.

“It’s Harry," he admitted into the silence. "They want me to talk about him. At the honours ceremony.”

“Oh.”

"I can't do it." He'd barely said anything but stress and shame and a dozen other things were already gathering in his throat. He pressed his face to Merlin's skin. "I fucked up." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I threw it all away for a - a fucking dog." Eggsy rolled off Merlin and onto his other side when Merlin reached up to touch him. He pulled a pillow down to cover his face. It wasn't nearly smothering or heavy or big enough to crawl into but he pushed Merlin's hand away when he tried to take it. 

"Eggsy?" 

Eggsy breathed into the pillow, in and out and in and out, warming his face with his own damp breath. He tracked phantom lights around his prickling eyes, yellow and green. Felt Merlin sit up and pull the covers loose on his side, climbing in. 

Pulling the pillow back under his head, Eggsy slowly rolled over to face him. 

"He was pissed about the dog, and the car. He said he had to go and he'd - " He breathed, eyes burning again. Eggsy swallowed it. "He'd deal with me later."

Merlin wasn't looking at him. He took a deep breath. He rubbed his eyes, his cheeks. "Harry let me have it that day, after he left," he said, at last.

It wasn't what Eggsy expected him to say. "What?"

"It was my fault." Merlin turned to look at him. "I never should have let Arthur interfere with your training. Harry knew that. He mentioned it. Colourfully. Said something about which of my body parts exactly he intended to rip out and shove down my throat when he got back from Kentucky."

"But I fucked everything up. I was finished."

"No, you weren't. You were my responsibility." Merlin winced and coughed under his arm on the pillow, his voice rough. "I wasn't done with you, and neither was Harry."

Eggsy could only look at him. It wasn't Merlin's fault. It obviously wasn't. "It was my test."

"And Chester was an evil, conniving prick of the first order," Merlin bit out. 

He pushed himself up. "I should have known that he'd try to sabotage your training. That he'd betray anyone, all of us to save his own fucking fortune." Merlin's face closed in pain over his knees. He breathed out of his mouth and Eggsy had to sit up and reach for him. 

Eggsy soothed him automatically, stroking Merlin's shoulders with his heart aching and his eyes burning more strongly in sympathy than for himself. 

"Shhh, shhh. It's okay." Eggsy sat back as Merlin coughed into his chest. He touched his forehead, his damp eyelids. Merlin felt tissue thin, feverish. Brittle. 

"Let's get this over with," Eggsy said. 

Merlin nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

Eggsy woke up to an unfamiliar phone alarm. He took Merlin's spot in bed and watched him get ready by the light of the bathroom - showering, dressing, moisturising his face, taking his pills, cleaning his glasses, blowing his nose, checking his email, eating an oat bar and a yogurt that Eggsy declined. Eggsy relinquished the duvet and only jumped into the pre-warmed shower when he had to. He used Merlin's toothbrush and antiperspirant.

The meeting was first thing, but Merlin was waylaid by a colleague in the lobby and Eggsy went on ahead to the conference room. It was the same one his team always used. 

It was standing room around the table with all of the events staff and the other legacy Kingsmen people, admin and tech management mostly. Many people that Eggsy was still only passingly familiar with. The committee seemed to be led by representatives from the official V-Day Heroes Commission and Kingsmen Ltd. admins. 

The Kingsmen round table leadership was being inducted into the Heroes Commission, with separate honors being conferred to Eggsy and Roxy as agents in training. Eggsy was also invited to induction ceremony on behalf of Agent Galahad and everyone from the table was encouraged say a few words.

"Wait..." Eggsy interrupted, looking around the committee. "What about Arthur?"

"Each of the table is being inducted," a spokesperson replied. 

"But," Eggsy stuttered and reeled. He got that he wasn't expected to contribute to this meeting, but shouldn't someone say something? Wasn't everyone thinking it? They were all looking at him, or pointedly not looking at him now. 

"But Arthur had the implant," he said slowly, reminding them, and himself, and feeling like he'd just stumbled into an alternate dimension. "He was part of it. He betrayed Kingsmen!" 

Wasn't that enough? Did he really have to remind everyone what Arthur tried to do that day? It wasn't exactly public knowledge, but he had thought they all knew. He thought everyone at Kingsmen knew. 

Eggsy could only glare helplessly at Merlin, standing quiet in the back of the room. He held Eggsy's gaze, tight with concern. Eggsy'd have already been shouting if he wasn't so confused, and, looking at Merlin, his guts coiled in nervous dread.

The committee members shuffled in their seats and looked at each other, silently communicating. 

"Dozens of government officials and global leaders were implanted in addition to Valentine's collaborators," the woman from the Commission who seemed to be in charge said at last. "We have no reason to believe that the majority of them were involved in the tragedy."

A few of the others nodded and gestured agreement.

"We have to remember that the implants were a breakthrough in communications technology of which Kingsmen was also at the forefront. We don't know why they all eventually malfunctioned the way they did. The situation was thoroughly investigated by the commission, if you've read the report. In any case, it's taken three years to reach any kind of agreement with the Americans on this. Especially regarding Agent Galahad," she finished meaningfully.

"What?" Eggsy stared between the committee members, nauseously crashing back to earth. "What about him?" 

They all glanced down and at each other. 

"No one is doubting Agent Galahad's importance in the commission," the chair hurried to mention. "But you can imagine how difficult it has been to negotiate any kind of recognition for this agency after what happened. Even just considering the setting and the feelings of the survivor communities abroad."

"A lot of sweat and grief," another commented.

"Yes, we've been over this before," someone said, clearing their throat, and the meeting agenda rolled forward so that Eggsy could only stare at the wall and try to calm down. 

He strode outside, directly into the rain as soon as they could leave. After the stuffy, over-warm conference room it was a blessed relief. Eggsy's face was burning. His fingers trembled as he pulled out a cigarette. 

Merlin walked ahead, leading him around the building to the parking garage. The rain and circling engines echoed like a tidal wave through the winding, vaulted levels, and Eggsy leaned against the wall and smoked until he could form a thought and didn't feel like crying anymore. He squeezed the cold, wet railing in his hands and picked at the flaking paint while Merlin rubbed his back.

"I thought the shit they were saying about Harry and about nobody knowing about what the chips did, all that shit, was just tabloids. And people not knowing any better." Eggsy cooled his eyelids with rainwater on his fingers. 

"The whole world is tabloids," Merlin murmured. "And some of it's classified tabloids."

"Why didn't you tell me about Arthur?"

"I didn't know."

"You weren't surprised?"

"Honestly? I'm more surprised they're celebrating the rest of us."

"What? Why?" Eggsy whispered

Merlin turned to lean against the rail. "A lot of very important people died that week. Or lost their investments. We're lucky they've decided to blame Valentine instead of hanging us."

"That would be insane."

"Would it?" 

Eggsy leaned back to look at him. He wondered what became of their debriefings, and how much ever made it out of those rooms and into the commission. Wondered what someone would think, if their testimony saw the light of day now. If Arthur was a hero now, what was Eggsy? If no one knew the true purpose of the implants, what was Merlin?

They walked the long way around the block and back. 

"Why don't you have to do anything? You should be speaking for Harry," Eggsy said, during a lull in the traffic. Merlin knew Harry better than Eggsy ever could have. 

Merlin just shook his head once, glancing down at the pavement and up. The clouds was breaking up and for a moment the sun was visible. "I spoke at the ceremony last year," he said. "You weren't there."

"I -" Eggsy wiped the rain off his hair. "I guess I was busy." 

He was pretty sure he had been busy drinking. 

"Can I read your speech? I don't know how to write one."

"Wasn't a script," Merlin said. "It's all formula. You don't have to say anything about how you really feel, if you don't want to. It might be better not to."

"I don't want to lie." 

"Don't lie. Just get through it."

Eggsy chewed his lip. He dodged out of the way of couples and families sheltering from the rain under the awnings. 

"It's not his funeral," Merlin remarked quietly, when they rejoined and turned onto a less crowded street. "Or a courtroom. It's press." 

Eggsy followed Merlin back to his hotel room again after he fed and walked JB that evening. Merlin had developed a proper sniffle and Eggsy couldn't imagine leaving him alone just then, or going back to his empty apartment with his thoughts. 

He opened the curtains and watched the street below, checked out the apartment windows he could just see into on the other side, bedroom and kitchen lights winking on. He was replaying the meeting in his head and dozens of other interactions he'd had over the last two years while Merlin showered and changed in the bathroom.

Merlin turned on a film and climbed into bed with a glass of water and a decongestant. "Wait, is this Alien?" Eggsy commented, only half paying attention partway through.

Merlin turned his head. He had a tissue box in his lap.

"Don't look at me like that," Eggsy said, but he put his phone down to watch it properly. 

Merlin was on his tablet, though, before the end. Eggsy leaned against his shoulder to watch him type an email. On the screen above Merlin's bent knees, Ripley grapple-hooked the alien out of the airlock and into space. 

He shifted into a more comfortable position against Merlin's side when the credits rolled.

Merlin's social media profile was under his given name, Hamish, although Eggsy had only ever called him that to annoy him. It felt too late to try it on again. And he liked that Merlin was Merlin just to him, and a few others. At some point even Eggsy had become Gary to most of the new generation in the office. 

Merlin's bony shoulder moved under Eggsy's cheek, his thumb hovering over the link to his direct messages. "Worried?" 

"That would be funny," Eggsy mumbled, sleepy. "Everyone should get to have you." 

"Well, there's nothing interesting anyway," Merlin said, flipping through them. 

"Too bad."

He scrolled down his feed. Eggsy reached up and navigated back up to a photo of three kids, two girls and a baby in a swing. "My cousin's," Merlin said. 

He named people as he scrolled. More cousins, one brother, his wife, a nephew, nephew's wife. Kingsmen people. Harry's brother. Eggsy made him pause on a picture of the brother. He resembled Harry, but Eggsy wouldn't have pegged him if Merlin hadn't pointed it out. His jaw, his forehead. Something about the way he smiled. 

"Will you tell me about him?"

"Harry?"

"Yeah." 

Merlin breathed. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't know. Anything."

Eggsy could feel Merlin thinking. He waited, watching him scroll through photos, status updates, more people. 

"Harry was a bit older than you when he was recruited. It wasn't until recently that Arthur started pushing for younger agents. Stronger fighters. Whelps he could control, more like." 

Merlin paused. "Harry wasn't well liked at first. Bit feisty," he continued.

Eggsy laughed. 

"Or so I gathered. I came in later. He didn't like Chester. Not in the least."

"I thought Chester had been Arthur forever."

"Not at all. Chester was elected Arthur six or seven years before you came along. Before that was James, and Galen, for about two months. Bit of a rough patch. Then Harold."

Merlin had opened his photos. He scrolled down until he found Harry, glaring balefully at the camera, and laughed. 

Harry and other Kingsmen, a photo of a photographic print, standing in front of a large Greek statue. Percival and Gawain. Two women who still worked in admin. Other people that Eggsy only recognised from press clippings, portraits, and some he'd never seen before. 

"He and Will got on great. Terrifyingly so." 

Eggsy reached out to expand the photo that Merlin had paused on. He had known about Merlin's partner, and who, but Merlin hadn't talked about it and Eggsy had never seen a candid picture. Will, with Harry's hand on his arm. He had a long narrow face, and brown floppy hair. Both were laughing. 

Merlin was taking up more responsibilities in development, and then transferred out of the field entirely around the time Will entered it. Will was one of those people who didn't get on with Harry, Merlin explained, in the beginning. 

"I thought it was a mistake putting him out there, especially with Galahad because of the way Harry riled him up. And it was a fucking disaster. A big one. They went dark for almost two weeks. I was railing at Arthur. But then they popped up together, suddenly. In France, and came home thick as thieves in a stolen Ford Escort. Neither of them would ever tell me what happened."

"Pricks," Merlin finished fondly, pulling out a tissue to blow his nose. 

"When did you and Will get together?" 

"A couple years later. Officially, anyway."

"How did you - how did it happen?"

Eggsy lifted his head to look at Merlin. His nose was pink.

"Office party," he said. "In the ladies' room." He was looking up at the ceiling, streaked with light, and smirked to remember. 

Eggsy settled further under Merlin's arm in the sheets.

"Was Harry ever married or anything?" he asked after a while. "Or gay? I thought he was, but I wasn't sure if that was just, you know. The suits and the butterflies." 

"Harry was an equal opportunity slut," Merlin replied. "You can say I said that in your memorial if you like." 

Eggsy gasped at his tone, and grinned. "You - " Merlin's palm covered his cheek in the dark, aiming for his mouth. He laughed. "I want to know!"

"Shush." 

Eggsy waited, delighted. "So was he good?"

"Five stars. The rest of the time... ?" Merlin finished with an amused, doubtful hum and laughed, a breath in the dark. 

\---

Eggsy got sick, of course, a cold that didn't seem to hit him as hard as it hit Merlin that week. Then it was the holidays, and he ended up asking after Merlin's address and mailing a package to his home in New York for the first time: a soft navy scarf wrapped around a Big Ben souvenir snowglobe. 

'My sister picked this out,' he wrote on the card, which Daisy also signed, and he threw in some Vitamin C packets.

They talked about visiting, but Eggsy ended up spending a quiet Christmas at his mum's. They video called Merlin, who was promptly stolen by Daisy. By the time Eggsy finished the gravy and could step away from the stove, Daisy had figured out how to turn on virtual multiplayer in her new game and had engaged Merlin in a heated tournament. 

[I know where you live now], he texted Merlin, scoping out his address online when he couldn't get to sleep that night on the pull-out couch. [You have a Taco Bell on the corner.]

[It's also a KFC.] Merlin texted him a photo of a glass of whisky sat next to an open box of fried chicken.

[Gross.]

[How dare you.]

In January, Merlin visited just for the weekend, on his way to some kind of leadership retreat in Berlin. Eggsy was restless that weekend and he thought about asking Merlin to go to the gym with him, but he was feeling nervous about it again. He wasn't sure if he would be able to get into the right headspace, and afraid that it would just fall flat if they tried. 

He had a belly that was impervious to crunches now, and he never went all out beast-mode anymore. It turned out that when you weren't twenty-two and half-starved and living every day of your life like you'd better fight for it, a six pack wasn't really in the cards. 

And then Eggsy got a nudge from the committee. He was slotted in. February 15th at 11:20am. Harry's induction. And, around that same time, Arthur. 

Even if it was all a sham, Eggsy realised that he wanted to get it right for Harry. Because they deserved to know what kind of man he really was. If there was anything he could say and if he could tell any part of it, he wanted to try.

But how to write it? Should it start with a poem, a verse of something? Eggsy wasn't a writer and it took him a few days to get past the embarrassment of even looking at the tripe that came out of his brain. Some of the phrases were unconsciously cadged from funerals and sermons he'd been to before just because he didn't know how else to write something like this.

He called Roxy, at a weak moment. "Yeah, I can't do that," she said immediately.

"Aren't you like, an Oxford bitch?" Eggsy exclaimed, at a complete loss. 

"Yeah, but I don't write unless I have to."

Eggsy started over with 'Harry was an indiscriminate slut and a five star fuck.' It flowed a little easier after that. He did delete that part, before finishing the draft for the committee. 

And Eggsy cringed, despite the fact that he had read over it dozens of times, to see the few short paragraphs on paper when he finally did print it out. It really wasn't much. It was sad, really. Harry'd have killed him. 

He'd probably have liked the saucy bits that Eggsy had to delete, though.

Biting the bullet, Eggsy cornered one of the events people in the office, Angela. She'd been nice to him at the meeting, and even talked to him after. 

"We were thinking a few sentences. You'll have up to two minutes, but we might be able to print more in the program," she added gently.

She held out her hand, toward the lonely page that Eggsy had printed and still held in his hands. "Are you done, though? Do you want me to look at it?"

"Um, no. It's okay. It's just a draft."

"It's the media circus," Merlin said, when Eggsy told him about it later, and then, "Will you let me read it?"

Eggsy frowned. He was outside, under a bright winter sky, fingers cold where he held his phone to his ear. "I don't know. It's nothing I haven't said and the rest of it's crap. Feels like I know what I shouldn't say, now."

He kicked what was left of some dirty slush and ground it into the pavement.

"It's hard because Harry would have fucking hated this."

He thought he heard Merlin laugh shortly under the rush of the passing cars. "He would have, yeah."

"Why are they doing it in the first place? Can we just tell them to fuck off? That none of us want to be in their stupid commission?"

Eggsy squinted in the cold wind and stepped off the sidewalk. He stood in a cafe door. "Politics. Patriotism. We're lucky they haven't chosen worse heroes. They'll just find some others if we don't participate." Merlin hadn't mentioned the Heroes Commission that way before and Eggsy heard his disgust when he did say it.

"Like who? Like Valentine?"

"It's something you learn, when you have a hand in the raw bits of history. The public doesn't want the truth so much as a comforting story. There is no grey. Just good, patriotic people, and evil, other kinds of people. Dead, complicated people have a way of becoming one or the other."

"But Harry's a hero."

"Be grateful they've decided that."


	3. Chapter 3

Eggsy did what he always did and tried to stay off the internet in the days leading up to V-Day.

Only Daisy didn't have anything to say about it, so he brought her over for a sleepover and made pasta and taught her to play cards. She was not at all interested at first, and then proceeded to destroy him at Speed.

Then it was V-Day. A Friday, day before the ceremonies. The same as any other day except there was a catered lunch at work and the streets were crowded and lit up with tea lights when Eggsy left that evening. He walked home in candlelight, eating a pocketed sandwich.

He didn't write two minutes about Harry, in the end. It wasn't Harry's funeral.

Merlin's flight had been delayed so Eggsy was home alone, trying to find a suit jacket in the back of his closet when Roxy called. He ended up telling her about Merlin, sitting on the floor and surrounded by every shirt and tie he owned.

"God, you have it bad," she sighed, when they'd finally stopped laughing.

Eggsy groaned. He had tears in his eyes. "Please shut the fuck up."

"I mean, wow. Don't get me wrong. Always thought he was fit."

"Really?"

"Oh. Absolutely," she said. Final answer. "The glasses, and that accent. Didn't you?"

"You had a crush on him!" he yelled, beyond delighted. And after she'd laughed at him. He wanted to know everything she had ever thought about Merlin. "Why didn't we talk about this?"

"Why didn't we talk about this?" she countered.

"It was," Eggsy groped for an explanation, "Weird!" It had been extremely fucking weird. He'd felt so, so addled, ever since the summer, and it was all flooding back.

"You would have thought I was completely psychotic. Wait, do you think he knows? Am I going to have to play it cool when we see you?" She laughed. "Or do you think he was like, fending off recruits all the time and it's, ummm, some kind of Kingsman Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Probably!"

"Hey, will you turn on your camera and tell me what to wear?"

"Still wish I'd told them to piss off," Eggsy said, later, curled up on a pile of clothes with his phone resting against his ear.

Roxy's sigh was a gust of static.

Merlin and Eggsy arrived the next morning to find Roxy and Lancelot standing outside near some Kingsmen people. They were both overdressed, and Roxy was perfect.

They hugged for a long time on the sidewalk. Eggsy noticed that Merlin and Lancelot shook hands over Roxy's shoulder but didn't otherwise speak. He closed his eyes and let himself breathe with her for a few more moments.

Merlin and Roxy shook hands. Then hugged, which made Eggsy's morning.

"Will you be attending the ceremony tonight?" Lancelot asked Eggsy, to be polite. Merlin, who'd had about three hours of sleep, strode off in search of coffee.

"Uh." He looked at Roxy. "No, not really. Are you?"

She nodded and handed Eggsy a schedule.

The morning event was in the big conference hall on the ground floor of Kingsmen Ltd. Eggsy didn't think he'd ever been in it for anything. It was off the atrium, dressed up and made unfamiliar with high-top tables and a coffee bar.

That was just the Kingsmen part. The Commission's full ceremony and memorial wasn’t until later, somewhere else that evening. Eggsy had only received and deleted about a dozen emails about it. But no one told him had to go so he wasn't. In the morning there would be final remarks and a reception back at Kingsmen.

Lancelot and the other men were all looking off in different directions. No one spoke. Eggsy belaboured a look at Roxy, who raised her eyebrows and rocked back on her heels.

"You look lovely," he leaned to her and whispered, as they filtered in.

"Why thank you. You're not wearing the shirt I picked out."

"Had a stain."

"Shame."

They peered around together, heads held close. "Is that Giles?" Eggsy whispered, indicating a man to the front of the room.

"Don't think so. Shit."

"What?"

"There's Pete."

"Who?"

"We were in training together. Don't look at him," she hissed and turned her head.

"Don't tell me you - "

"Shhh, no. I owe him fifty pounds."

They found Merlin and a few empty seats, folding chairs set up in rows down the center of the hall. Eggsy didn't know what he expected, but he didn't realise it would all feel so ordinary. It could have been anything, a documentary, a lecture, a school play.

Looking around at the people chatting around them, he guessed that his colleagues were in the minority of the crowd. Well at least he didn't have to worry about making a fool of himself in front of everyone at the office. It would mostly be strangers looking up at him, all still waking up with their little paper cups of coffee and tea. People who didn't know Eggsy, or Harry, or care much either way.

What had Harry said? Something about Kingsmen being the invisible hands of history, never front page news? But here they were, getting a lukewarm hand of applause for saving the world.

The opening remarks were just long enough for Eggsy to get nervous and start to sweat in his seat. He didn't even look at Roxy or Merlin who stood up beside him when the Kingsmen table representatives were finally called up, he was so focused on getting up to the stage without tripping on something.

There were six people before Eggsy, each standing for a deceased member of the table. Eggsy knew one of them from the office. The others, including a representative for Arthur in military dress, he didn't. All were brief. The men who accepted the honors for Arthur, Erec, and Morholt just said, "Thank you."

Eggsy shook the host's hand and walked up to the podium. He faltered, and found Roxy's face in the audience.

Easy, just read the page. Eggsy read out Harry Hart's honors, printed by the Commission. He swallowed. "Harry recruited me and gave me a chance when no one else would. I owe him my entire life. He was a real hero, and the best man I ever knew."

It was enough, it was too much, and it was nothing. It was done. The living Kingsmen table members in attendance, Merlin, Giles, and Lancelot, each received their awards and shook the host's hand without smiling or saying a single word.

"Was that stupid?" Eggsy muttered when he was able to sit back down next to Roxy. She squeezed his hand between their chairs.

Eggsy turned to find Merlin taking a seat just behind them and leaned on his steady gaze like a balustrade.

He tuned in and out for the rest of the presentation. He was well past listening and just waiting for it to be over when the final speaker, a political type in a tan suit, was introduced on the stage.

It wasn't a quick one. Eggsy examined his own hands, Roxy's shoes, the handbag of the woman in front of them. And started paying attention when he felt Roxy shift in her seat.

"Now let's talk about what we will not do. We must not allow V-Day to take away our hope, our pride, or our heroes. Just like us, they strove for a more connected and more informed world. No facts censored, and no voice too distant or too small to be heard."

Eggsy looked down at his hands.

"Great Britain lost many great leaders that day. And many more decent people. Peaceful, connected, future thinking people. We must not let our grief for them poison us with a hatred of ingenuity, or a fear of invention. We can not return to the dark ages of suspicion, or fail to honor those who made the greatest sacrifice by abandoning their values."

He caught Roxy's eye and they looked at each other, listening.

"Today we honor one such future-thinking man many of us were lucky enough to call a friend. Chester King, the last great Arthur of the Kingsmen table. Arthur invested in young blood, new technologies, new ideas, and was maliciously deceived and murdered, like so many."

Eggsy's chair scraped on the floor as he pushed himself bodily back and exited the room.

The bathroom was empty, thank god. Eggsy held his hands under the faucet just because it was too quiet in there, because he could hear his own ragged inhale, just because he needed to wash something.

"Eggsy?" He felt the muscles in his back and the hairs on his neck draw up. He couldn't look at Merlin. "Are you okay?"

"Fuck, no. Are you?"

"No. Not really," Merlin answered quietly, and "We can't do this right now."

"Why not?" But he knew why not.

He didn't belong here. Not in this world that Harry wouldn't have recognised and didn't know about, where attempted mass-murderers were martyrs and the people that stopped them were the real villains. And he didn't understand this place, where they all shared a stage.

Bent over the sink, Eggsy pressed his forearms against the edge of the counter until it hurt, a queasy grey static buzzing in his rigid neck and knuckles.

"Eggsy. Remember your training." Merlin's tone was even. It landed like ice in his gut.

"Fuck you."

"When you're ready."

He blew out a held breath. Waited for Merlin to fuck off. Breathed again. Glanced up in the mirror to find Merlin still planted behind him like a steel pole and looking about as imperturbable as that.

Something unwound, and sloughed off Eggsy's shoulders, leaving him weary and uncomfortable. He wet his hands again and cooled his eyelids and face on the damp paper towel.

He braced for judgment, turning around, but Merlin only reached out to hug him, tightly, and too briefly. Eggsy apologised into his shoulder.

"Shall we?"

They went back in.

\---

"Harry would have made a right fucking scene," Merlin said, showing all his ratcheted frustration for the first time that day when they were finally away from the event and alone.

He paced briefly in the short alley, stopped suddenly to look at Eggsy where he had leaned his body against the brick wall like a folding ladder that needed putting away. "Are you okay?"

"I - yeah." Eggsy looked up. He pressed back against his hands on the cold wall

He was fine. It was almost over. He stared at a point and pressed his lips together to hold in tears, felt them drain away.

"Can I say something?"

"'Course," Eggsy replied automatically, but Merlin only looked down at the asphalt.

Eggsy had never seen him so rattled. He waited for Merlin to struggle through it, wanting to comfort him.

"Harry could be a prick," Merlin started, slowly, twisting his lips, "But he was right about what mattered."

He squeezed and shook Eggsy's arm. "And he was right about choosing you. I am sorry, Eggsy."

Eggsy breathed in on a sharp pain and leaned forward, digging his fingertips into the brick mortar behind.

"Fuck," he exhaled, and touched his eyes. "I'm sorry, too." God in heaven, he hated V-Day, he thought, wiping his face.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

They scavenged left-overs from Eggsy's fridge and watched part of a quiz show, and a panel. Roxy texted Eggsy's updates from the ceremonies. Mostly gripes about the cheap wine and insipid memorials to various corrupt heads of state.

Eggsy laughed suddenly. He was thinking about Harry, and the newspapers in his office.

"When were you going to tell me you fucked him?"

Merlin blew out his cheeks. "Don't know," he replied. "Would you like the list? Harry's or mine?"

"Is Lancelot on it?"

"God, no."

Merlin turned and smiled when Eggsy kept laughing, sinking down in the couch, happy and wrung out. And wistful. He'd missed out, apparently.

Eggsy turned off the TV when he saw that Merlin had closed his eyes and sat thinking, or resting, or just being.

He knelt over Merlin's lap in the dim light. "Are you okay?"

Merlin nodded. He bowed his head as Eggsy kissed the line between his eyes, his cheekbones, his shoulder, his nose, his temples.

"I want you." Eggsy took his hand and kissed his thumb. "What do you want?"

"Eggsy, I - "

He pressed his face to Merlin's head, rested there.

"I think I want to make you come and put you to bed," Merlin said at last. "Is that okay?"

"Oh," Eggsy breathed. "Any time."

But Merlin was hugging him in his lap and he didn't move for a few minutes. "Are you ready?"

"Can be."

It was early, but Eggsy could sleep and Merlin didn't look so great.

"Don't rush," Merlin said, letting him into the bathroom after him.

Eggsy tried not to hurry. It wasn't as if he had much to do in there. But Merlin had left his toiletry bag on the sink and Eggsy hadn't snooped before. He wasted some time unpacking it with the shower running for cover. He opened a lotion, cedar and pine. So that's where that smell came from. He trimmed his nails with Merlin's clippers.

He could just hear Merlin walking by on the other side.

There was something odd, and immensely intimate, about having both their things together. To be getting in bed together, to have sex, on purpose, and then sleep, as agreed.

Eggsy bit his lip and leaned back against the headboard, something nervous fluttering in his chest while he watched Merlin finish with his suitcase. He could have watched Merlin for hours, getting ready, getting unready. Plugging in his phone, zipping up his bag, walking around the bed, leaning over, and kissing Eggsy gently on the mouth, dipping away when Eggsy leaned forward, just brushing, forward and back. It glittered.

He stretched his legs out on the duvet when Merlin moved to sit over him, and stroked the silky material of Merlin's pyjama pants.

Merlin framed Eggsy's collarbones with his hands and sat back to look at him.

Touching his forearm, Eggsy saw his arm flex in memory, a flash of something from another time. "Will you choke me? Sometime?"

"I won't do that."

"Why not?" He was so close, thumbs sweeping over Eggsy's collarbones. Eggsy shivered and blinked his eyes shut.

"Because I don't know how to do it without hurting you."

The implication that Merlin had only choked people out to hurt them burst like a warm water balloon in Eggsy's gut. "Wow."

"Are you - ?" Merlin hand slid down to grope him.

He moaned, tilting his head back, and gripped Merlin's wrist. The other of Merlin's hands slid around his throat, harrowingly gentle.

"If you come right now you may regret it," Merlin said, handling him professionally.

"Why?"

"Because I am going to suck you whether you're ready or not."

"Oh, fucking, fuck." That wasn't fair. He let himself fall forward to touch his forehead to Merlin's shoulder, coming in his hand.

"Did you know that you orgasm really fast?"

"What - ." Eggsy was still catching his breath. "Did you just call me?"

He let Merlin urge him further down the bed until he was lying back.

Sure, Eggsy couldn't go all night, and he usually finished a lady off with his hands or mouth. But he felt like that was a win for everyone. "I have never had any complaints."

Merlin was pulling down his pyjama pants to bite and kiss at the crease of his thigh; Eggsy flapped a hand at him when it was too much. "Oh, I am not complaining," he said.

Eggsy pushed himself up onto his elbows to look down at Merlin, who smirked. Well at least he was feeling better.

"Jerk." He fell back onto his back.

Eggsy twitched, whining in his throat when Merlin took his dick in hand again, just holding it. Something shockingly wet and slick slid underneath, Merlin's tongue licking down and around his testicles. "Oh shit," Eggsy hiccuped under his breath, and held on to the bed like he'd fly off it otherwise.

He couldn't stop squirming as Merlin mouthed around, careful about his beard, not careful enough. He thumbed and sucked on Eggsy's balls and thighs until he was sweating and twitching and painfully hard and overstimulated by every scrape and wet kiss.

"Merlin, Merlin, Merlin. I can't. Oh fuck." Eggsy choked and locked up, abs cramping when Merlin sucked in his entire left nut like an oyster and then slid up to take his cock all the way down.

He gasped in fresh air after a few failed attempts and felt Merlin's skull with the palm of his hand. "Wait. Fuck. You really don't want me to...?"

Merlin hummed, and swallowed, and Eggsy forgot what he was saying and fell back.

"I want," Merlin said, popping off, "you to come again." He pushed himself up to find a more comfortable position. "And then I want to go to sleep early."

"Oh, okay," Eggsy sighed. "If you say so." 

Merlin didn't mess around, and Eggsy was there again in no time, making fast, high sounds in his chest as he was sucked down hard, one hand squeezing his nuts close to his body.

"Ow." Eggsy dozed with one arm over his face. He heard Merlin grunt a reply when he sat up, mattress dipping to one side.

"Where's your ibuprofen?"

"In the bathroom."

Eggsy had pulled a shirt on and was checking his text messages with JB draped over his ankles when Merlin returned with a glass of water and a pill bottle. 

"Hello, beautiful," he greeted Merlin.

"Hello."

"Can I have one of those?"

Merlin tossed him the pill bottle.

"Ta."

Eggsy got up to turn out the lights, check the doors, and make sure JB had his stuffed hippo.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he whispered when he returned and found Merlin still sitting on the edge of the bed with his eyes closed. Eggsy could see the entire day on his shoulders, maybe even the year, or the decade. "Can I get you anything?"

Merlin shook his head. They slid under the covers, Eggsy's hand over Merlin's arm under the duvet, JB squirming around in his armchair by Eggsy's side. 

Eggsy had closed his eyes and was slipping away when he felt Merlin take his hand and raise it to his lips. "I don't deserve you," he murmured against Eggsy's fingers.

"What?" Eggsy blinked his eyes open, looked at Merlin lying on his back in the dark. "How could you say that?"

He scooted over, "Can I just - ," and leaned up to kiss Merlin's cheek, his face, his head.

He rested his cheek on Merlin's pillow. He could feel the heat of his skin so close to his face and he fell asleep there, listening to Merlin breathe, Merlin holding his forearm on his chest.

\---

Merlin seemed alright the next day, during the final speech, which Eggsy barely listened to for his own mental health. A few members of the press showed up for the reception and Eggsy peeled off with Roxy as soon as the cameras came out. No one would notice if they were missing in the sea of political types and dignitaries.

Catching Merlin’s eye before he disappeared, Eggsy half hoped he might take the hint and follow, but he just nodded, a small plastic cup of champagne in hand.

[Are you okay? Should I come back.]

[No. Probably better you left when you did. Tell you later.] Then while Eggsy was still thinking about a reply. [I'm okay here.]

Eggsy had a drink with Rox, went back to the office, hid in his cubicle for a while, and left as soon as Merlin was ready.

They went for a walk around and ate a late lunch outside, enjoying the sharp breeze and warm afternoon sun. Merlin told him a bit about the social. Most of the politicians and general public gave the surviving Kingsmen people a wide berth but a few expressed their clumsy congratulations and sympathies. 

Eggsy apologised for not staying to talk. People that Merlin had worked with for years had come.

"There's not much to say with so many strangers around," Merlin said, "I wanted to introduce you to Jay, but it would probably be better to meet him with a stiffer drink in hand. He'll tell you all about Harry."

A familiar shade of khaki and a distinctive gait flashed in the corner of Eggsy's eye. He glanced up to see his supervisor, David, checking his watch and looking down at the sidewalk. As if he hadn't just made eye contact with Eggsy, sitting on the park bench with his arm snug around Merlin's waist.

"Well, so much for that." Merlin lifted his cup to his face to hide a smile.

"Fuck."

"It doesn't matter."

Probably not, but even so. "It's not the 90s anymore, Merlin. The fuck fest is over."

Merlin choked and coughed on his coffee and Eggsy slapped his back, laughing so much he cried.

\---

"Why didn't you just fuck me?" Eggsy asked Merlin, watching him fuss around his hotel room from his bed that night. "You could have. Like, literally whenever."

Merlin paused, folding a shirt. Eggsy couldn't read his expression. "I didn't want to take advantage of you."

"You what? Advantage of what? How I was gagging for you?"

Merlin smiled, face opening, but he was looking at the floor, not at Eggsy. "Were you?"

"Oh my god."

Merlin didn't really answer until later, getting ready for his red eye flight. "I guess I was waiting for you to figure out what you needed, whether it was comfort or... to work through some things related to your training. Anything, Eggsy. I didn't know."

He was silent, eyes restless over Eggsy's shoulders and face. Eggsy's ribs twinged and he cringed, not quite offended. Merlin had thought that Eggsy was using him to work out his personal issues. Or trying him out.

"That would have been pretty fucked up."

"It wouldn't have been fucked up," Merlin replied, wandering off in thought. He patted his pockets for his wallet, his keys, checked that his suitcase was zipped and locked. "I couldn't have held it against you. How else are you supposed to figure out what you need?"

He took Eggsy's hand when he reached for him. "I liked that you kept coming to me," Merlin added, lips twitching. "The way you looked at me."

He smiled against Eggsy's lips. "You were so..." Merlin's tongue brushing against Eggsy's when his lips fell open was intoxicating, and shimmering and Eggsy dug his fingers into Merlin's jacket to ground himself.

"You were like a nervous animal, eating out of my hand," Merlin said, leaning down further over Eggsy still in his bed and Eggsy's hands hurt from how hard he clung to Merlin, then.

"I thought, maybe you thought I was just a confused kid who'd fuck off eventually," Eggsy admitted, later. "I thought you were just being nice."

Merlin laughed. "Now that's just foolish."


End file.
